The Peace House announces:

Saturday, March 20 – - – Seven-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
NW 23rd Street & Blackwelder, OKC (OCU,between Western & Penn Ave)
10:30: Drumming & Music (bring your drum)
11a.m.-Noon: RALLY: Speakers from student and faculty populations
Noon: Peace March begins, returns to NW 23rd & Blackwelder
Bring signs, banners, trumpets and timpani
Cosponsored by OCU OIKOS Scholars and The Peace House

Here’s a link to a pdf of a flyer you can print off and share:
Peace March Flyer

I don’t have much faith in the readership numbers he gives, as OkieDoke has been shuttered for eight months. It was a really good blog, but I don’t think its was so good that it’s going to bring in 361 readers a day that long after anything was posted.

I stopped looking at or caring about stats for Peace Arena some time ago, so I can’t supply any alternative visitor numbers for this blog.

I posted a comment under Gaddie’s article about my list of Oklahoma’s “netroots” i.e. liberal/progressive blogs, which can be found here.

Yesterday I went to Big Lots on an errand for my Mom. While there I of course perused their bargain bin of DVDs and books. Here’s what I got:

Book:
• Courting Justice (memoir by hotshot attorney David Boies)

DVDs:

• Casa de los Babys (John Sayles)
• The Science of Sleep (Michael Gondry, who also wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which blew my mind)
• Peaceful Warrior (based on Dan Millman’s iconic book)
• Man on the Moon (the Andy Kaufman biopic starring Jim Carrey)
• Chisolm: Unbought & Unbossed (looking forward to this; she’s a huge hero of mine)
• The Ground Truth (soldiers speaking about the Iraq war and its impact on their lives)
• Before Sunrise (by Richard Linklater, and one of my favorite films of all time; I have on cassette, but kind of worn out)
• Day Zero (I’d never heard of this drama; says its about what happens to three young men when the draft is reinstated)
• A Mighty Heart (the true story of the assassinated Wall Street Journal reporter David Pearl and his widow Mariane, based on her memoir and starring Angelina Jolie; I actually meant to see this but never did)
• Man from Plains (Jonathan Demme’s profile of Jimmy Carter, in very eco-friendly packaging)

I started to get State and Main, another favorite film I already have on cassette, but talked myself out of it — which I kind of regret now. Such a great film.

All of the above were $3 each, except for A Mighty Heart, which was $5. Total cost of one bestseller book (in its original publication) and 10 either excellent or promising DVDs: $35

I did manage to force myself to pass up Gigli and Madonna’s Swept Away for only $3 each. It was hard, but my will prevailed!

I often wondered what they talked about during the commercials, so to speak. Well, now we know.

By the time Gene Siskel died much too early, they really had bonded and loved each other, though maybe they didn’t say it, or recognize it until Gene was sick and the writing was on the wall. Roger Ebert has memorialized his partner and friend so beautifully since then, in a way we should all hope to be honored when we are gone.

Now Roger himself is ill, has lost his voice, but still writes and his real Voice rings pretty clear on issues beyond celluloid and art. He has stood strong to rant against the violations of our constitution, and the immorality of war. You can’t keep a spirit like that down.

That pair has brought me a lot of insight, pleasure and laughter over the years. These outtakes — biting, argumentative, silly, make me love those guys all the more.

Earlier this week, a health care rally on the Capitol steps sparsely attended because few knew about it. Amazingly, the Oklahoman actually covered it, and printed a picture of three or four people. Imagine if a couple of hundred supporters of health care reform had been there and THAT picture had been printed. It would not have changed the vote of any Oklahoma elected official, but the psychological effect on other supporters, and possibly on the public might have been priceless.

Not that I personally should be singled out for notification, that’s not what I’m getting at. (Though no doubt part of my frustration at the moment lies in the fact that, in addition to this blog, I have been operating what seeks to be a central Oklahoma progressive events calendar, for 5 years or so, and have tried and tried to get it read and recognized by the community as a tool they might find useful for their own work. It remains obscure and I pick up news of events to add to it wherever I happen to come across them, missing many, finding many too late. I also sometimes despair of its point and don’t bother updating it.)

No, this is about community, or the lack of it, in what I somewhat facetiously call the “Oklahoma progressive community.” I know it’s larger than many outside it suspect, but how can you fault them for being unaware, we never are seen together, are we?

We are in the middle of arguably the most conservative, politically closed state in the country. It’s understood that with rare exceptions, we cannot count on the corporate media in this area to do one bit of this communication for us; quite the opposite — we almost hope to be ignored by that media, rather than have our mission, our words, our efforts, sarcastically demeaned in public.

We have to find or create other means, if we want to find a way to support our activities, expand the reach of our voices, engage in making real social change, rather than just bemoaning our fate amongst ourselves.

A number of organizations have their internal email lists and phone banks, which operate at varying levels of efficiency and effectiveness, depending on volunteer activity that ebbs and flows. Sometimes the best to hope for is getting that small list alerted so some event or action.

In the last year, quite a few Okie progressives have found Facebook to be a way to build some worthwhile connections, using tools there for forming groups, posting events and the like. But many, including some of the most informed, either don’t want anything to do with online networking, or if they do, use it sparingly, or just don’t have the time to add it to their already packed agendas.

But why can’t we do better? Why can’t we find a way to communicate with one another? Then, having this community awareness, supporting one another’s actions and events, projects and campaigns.

I believe that finding ways to communicate better would expand our numbers as well as the enthusiasm for participating, volunteering and working for change.

If we did have the tools and commitment to engage in such communication, what would it look like? What do we need to build to make that happen? How do we build it? Once such an infrastructure is build, how do we nurture and promote it to keep it thriving?

Is this a pipe dream in Oklahoma? Are we just fated to be permanently alienated, in our small disconnected cliques, griping about how ineffectual it all is?

Or am I just having a bad week?

Oklahoma Citizen already has been getting a lot of buzz during a limited site reveal among the progressive community. You can register to comment or post content, and help make the site THE place for finding out what’s going on in terms of the values and people we care about most (you aren’t going to find that in the existing corporate media, ya know).

So check it out and help make this site a big success. It will really take all of us lefties pitching and contributing content and comment. Oh, and you can fan Oklahoma Citizen on Facebook here.

Full disclosure: I have been helping get the site started.

New England United Antiwar Conference MIT Jan 30, 2010
Panel #1 The Drive Towards Empire and Endless War
Bruce Gagnon, Global Network

I worked with Bruce in his early days as a nuclear freeze activist in Orlando, Florida. He was a pretty good speaker and budding leader, though I had some minor issues with his style, but I had no idea he would go on to become a globally recognized nuclear arms/weapons expert with Space for Peace. He’s been a tireless activist, speaker, writer and dissident who tells the truth to a world that mostly doesn’t want to listen.

Batch says “Poignant, playful and sweetly subversive with warm harmonies – acoustic music that zings!”

WHAT: Benefit Concert for Peace House & Church of the Open Arms

COST: Free Admission – (freewill donations during concert gratefully accepted)

WHEN: Saturday, Feb. 13, 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:30 for
refreshments & social)

SEE: www.checkeredpastmusic.com
- Hide quoted text -

Kansas City folk singers “Checkered Past” will perform a benefit concert, admission free, in Oklahoma City, Saturday evening, February 13th. Freewill donations during the concert will benefit the Peace House and Church of the Open Arms. “This event is for political liberals who love live music,” said Peace House board member Donna Compton. The concert begins at 7 pm, at Church of the Open Arms, 3131 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Oklahoma City. Doors open at 6:30.

Compton described Checkered Past as “a group of five dedicated social activists, wielding guitars, bass, mandolin, fiddle, flute, and vocal harmony in a war against gloom and resignation.” She said their original music includes “sweet and personal love songs, crusty blues, silly social commentary and jitterbugs.” One member of the group said, “If we can’t find the song we are looking for in the last 500 years, we just write one.” Event participants are invited to bring their own instruments to “jam with the band” after the concert.

Checkered Past was the only American band to perform at a global food conference, in Turin, Italy, in 2008. At the conference, some 5,000 food producers from around the world gathered to discuss sustainable and local food production to improve people’s health and harmony with nature. The group’s website is www.checkeredpastmusic.com.

… the behavior of Justice Alito at last night’s State of the Union address — visibly shaking his head and mouthing the words “not true” when Obama warned of the dangers of the Court’s Citizens United ruling — was a serious and substantive breach of protocol that reflects very poorly on Alito and only further undermines the credibility of the Court. It has nothing to do with etiquette and everything to do with the Court’s ability to adhere to its intended function.

There’s a reason that Supreme Court Justices — along with the Joint Chiefs of Staff — never applaud or otherwise express any reaction at a State of the Union address. It’s vital — both as a matter of perception and reality — that those institutions remain apolitical, separate and detached from partisan wars. The Court’s pronouncements on (and resolutions of) the most inflammatory and passionate political disputes retain legitimacy only if they possess a credible claim to being objectively grounded in law and the Constitution, not political considerations. The Court’s credibility in this regard has — justifiably — declined substantially over the past decade, beginning with Bush v. Gore (where 5 conservative Justices issued a ruling ensuring the election of a Republican President), followed by countless 5-4 decisions in which conservative Justices rule in a way that promotes GOP political beliefs, while the more “liberal” Justices do to the reverse (Citizens United is but the latest example). Beyond that, the endless, deceitful sloganeering by right-wing lawyers about “judicial restraint” and “activism” — all while the judges they most revere cavalierly violate those “principles” over and over — exacerbates that problem further (the unnecessarily broad scope of Citizens United is the latest example of that, too, and John “balls and strikes” Roberts may be the greatest hypocrite ever to sit on the Supreme Court). All of that is destroying the ability of the judicial branch to be perceived — and to act — as one of the few truly apolitical and objective institutions.

Justice Alito’s flamboyantly insinuating himself into a pure political event, in a highly politicized manner, will only hasten that decline.